Skip to content
worldfires
ZW · Zimbabwe · →

Umzingwane fire, September 2021 Umzingwane, Insiza

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2021, 12:14 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2021 in Umzingwane, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,622 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 87th largest in Matabeleland South since 2016 (of 203 with a page). Number 68 in Zimbabwe in 2021, of 176.

Burnt area
1,622ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
19 Sept 2021 – 20 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
19 Sept
2021
Heat detections
32
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Energy released
821MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1920

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Umzingwane where it started
    1,627 ha reached on 19 Sept
    0.6 %
  2. Insiza
    0 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 12 Sept 2021
After · 27 Sept 2021

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 32Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zimbabwe ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Umzingwane fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 September 2021 and 20 September 2021: 2 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,622 hectares (16.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Umzingwane (1,627 ha, 0.6 %); Insiza (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Zimbabwe (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.